


Hell of a Start

by 13letters



Series: Hell of a Start and Other Companion Works [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Adventure, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Humor, Lifelessons by Poe Dameron, Romance, Slow Build, The Traveling Jacket
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-05-08 01:56:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5479019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/13letters/pseuds/13letters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"Charming," he mutters.</em>
</p><p>  <em>"She'd really sit here for hours, Finn. It took a lot for her to decide to go."</em></p><p>  <em>"Yeah," he says. He tries half a smile since Poe always is, but it slowly straightens to nothing, just rests in his eyes and his flinching fingers. "I miss her," he admits. "I hope she's okay."</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And Time

**Author's Note:**

> ALRIGHT. MANDATORY WARNING:
> 
> IF YOU HAVEN'T YET SEEN STAR WARS, GO FOR IT NOW OR MOVE ALONG TO SPOILER-FREE STORIES.
> 
> IF YOU HAVE -- enjoy! This is my take on it, obviously, it's all speculation and what I think (want) because these two realLY GIVE ME A LOT OF FEELINGS, OKAY. OKAY.

When Finn awakes, he has half a parsec to worry he's dead.

There's incessant beeping too loud, lights too bright, his throat too dry, and his entire body feeling heavy and weightless all at once, empty yet full and battered and _breathing_ and alive.

A coarse sheet is scratchy at his chin, his chest, and he can feel that, and he can hear the rustling of blankets as he's feeling the heels of his feet shift into the mattress, and when he lifts one arm to scratch instinctively at the burning itch of his right shoulder, he can't. 

He can't.

There's a head of dark hair resting on the edge of his cot.

All he thinks is Rey, but then two dazed eyes are blinking back at him when he struggles to say her name.

"Not Rey," the face says. It's a fit to place the name and that smile that's both parts hopeful and apologetic, but it's Poe Dameron, and some things just can't be forgotten (like the person that named you) even when you've forgotten a lot of how you've gotten to be in some type of medical ward with a machine that's still beeping too damned loud. "Poe. Fastest pilot in the Resistance," he grins, like he's been saying it for years or every night in front of a mirror.

Finn feels the edge of a smile press at his mouth, too, and even though he's been asleep for who knows how long, he can tell he's missed it. "Hey," he tries to say, just a quiet rasp of nothing that's more breath than a word.

"Water," Poe says like he's remembering, and well, it isn't like the hours wandering the deserts of Jakku thirst, but his throat's still awful dry, and his arm's bandaged where it's itching, and the longer he's awake, the more his back is probably killing him for real. "And the medic," like he's remembering that, too, checking off a list in his head, but he just looks so damned _happy_. Relieved. "I'll be back fast," Poe swears, up and gone as fast as he flies, near tripping and stumbling into the door jam before he disappears.

And reappears promptly, with medics presumably, BB-8 most importantly, the General Princess Leia Organa Solo herself, and more faces he's too tired to pretend to identify.

He drinks the water another droid offers him, answers the questions a medic asks him, and manages to lift both his arms just barely until he's gone exhausted of the praise and Poe's jokes and Bebe thumping into the bed frame excitedly.

He means to ask where they are, though, since no one's thought to tell him that and what's all happened to him -- all impressive questions if he's thinking cognitively, but sleep feels heavy to his eyes. He wants to ask where Rey is more than the rest, but his rationale convinces him that meager worries (lies) of caring for her health aren't reason enough for the strange disappointment that hit him when Poe was at his bedside instead of her.

So he wonders where Mister Solo is a moment after, because he's forgotten and decides that if he's going to be hurt in more ways than the physical, why not give Han some hell for it, too?

Except then he remembers.

It stays with him when he falls back to sleep with all those people still watching him.

\- -- - -- -

"Bespin," Poe tells him with a quick grin and a quicker laugh. It's a day later, and while he's had to help Finn sit up in his cot, at least he doesn't have to feed him. Or so he told Finn when he laughed and said he'd rather not eat whatever this gross stuff was.

_"Stormtrooper rations were better than this," he complained, torn between intrigue and disgust._

_Poe laughed so hard that he snorted his drink out his nose. "You want more of the yellow stuff then?"_

_"I don't know," Finn told him, 'cause really, all of it tasted like.. well, that was it. Nothing had ever tasted that bad. But he was slowly transitioning to solid foods! The yellow stuff, however, he just didn't know what consistency it was, liquid or solid, and Poe got a kick outta that._

_"Take mine, buddy."_

"The Resistance re-relocated to Bespin as a precaution. Sure good thing, too."

"Why?" Finn asks. He's almost unsure he wants to know. Damage was still damage even if it wasn't a planet being blown to bits.

"Was a battle, not a war. An airstrike came for the base, but the General had already ordered an evacuation days before. Everyone was gone when their fleet came."

"Everyone?" And now he tries to not sound so hopeful since he actually sounds like himself, but Poe sees right through him, _sees him_ and smirks like he knows all of it.

"You want to ask about the girl, right?" he chides, sitting back in his chair and shoveling his fingers through his dark hair.

"Rey," Finn corrects. Everyone should know the name of their hero, his hero, and he knows that a lightsaber had torn into his back now, sliced into his skin in a way that worried the medics he might not ever walk again -- especially since Poe told him he hadn't moved at all for the longest time, but thinking about Rey, it just. It cracks in his ribs. "Where is she?"

"I don't have the exact coordinance," Poe says as casually as that first _are you with the Resistance?_ but way more subtle. "Okay, that's a lie. She went after Luke."

As if he has any entitlement to call him by his first name, pfft. Pfft.

 _Pfft_.

"..Right after?"

"No. No! Blast it, Finn," he hurries to say. To his credit, he doesn't smirk, 'cause it really struck his gut how he asked for her when he woke and called for her when nightmares got too bad. But hey, he had them, too. He understood. "She didn't just leave. It took a little time to plan the trip and determine precisely where he's been hiding away all this time without a word. Selfish, if you ask me. General Organa never does."

"But she still left," he tries _not_ to say. A part of him realizes and pushes away the thought of how he was going to leave her first, but _come with me_ and _don't go_ and how he risked blasted everything to save her.

"She was always by your side, though," Poe soothes like the salve on his burns, soft and a bit too non-prying. "Twenty-eight days waiting for you to wake up before she decided to finally leave. We had a lot of time to talk. Bebe adores her."

Oh. That's nice. And he's so close to not asking, too. "How long has she been gone?"

"Thirty-four days." It's quick, the way he says it. Unassuming. He holds up the yellow stuff since he's gotten to stealing a bit of it since Finn seems to like it more and more than the slosh they're giving him. Not that he blames him. "Are you hungry? I sure am. I could eat a bantha."

"Sixty-three days?" Seven looks of horror slowly catch his face in the bleak light, and he gapes up at the ceiling, flails a bit in the sheets. "I've been out for sixty-three days?"

"Yeah," Poe says slowly. He leans forward and rests his arms on his knees while Finn sinks a little deeper into the cot. "They said it was a coma at first, which was.. not _ideal_ , y'know, but man, your back. And then you didn't, uh. Uh." He coughs once, looks down to his feet, tries to smile.

Finn angles himself slightly, masks his wince, and tries to not seem too surprised. He laughs too hard, his heart gets too erratic from sorry or fear; the machine beeps and he's monitored for a while. "I didn't wake up?" he finishes for him, saying it like the punch to a joke.

"And you weren't responsive where it counted, I guess. Then I think they did medical-induced nonsense. You weren't moving at all 'till they figured you were having a nightmare. First time you started moving your legs and you just about scared the Force out of Rey."

"Charming," he mutters.

"She'd really sit here for hours, Finn. It took a lot for her to decide to go."

"Yeah," he says. He tries half a smile since Poe always is, but it slowly straightens to nothing, just rests in his eyes and his flinching fingers. "I miss her," he admits. "I hope she's okay."

\- -- - -- -

In front of her mirror, she brushes through her hair and tries not to think of Han twining his calloused fingers through it delicately, of Ben and how he was always so fascinated by it.

She's strong, and she's a general, and damn it all, she's the composure of royalty and the stalwart duty of a leader, and she's still returning to what she's always done best. She's gotten her people safe. She's almost gotten Luke returned to her. She can feel the presence of Han sometimes, warm and encasing the parts of her that had been cold for too long, but tonight -- she just stares at the ceiling.

Again, she wonders what might have happened differently if she'd been there. If it'd been her instead of Han. If the years were kinder to them.

She rolls onto her side, curls her arm around her pillow, and she doesn't cry. Everything is supposed to have a reason, and she'll believe that until it becomes an unconscious, painless thought.

Right now she just thinks about how Chewie had the courage to hug her before Han could when he'd stepped off the Falcon and back into her life, and Chewbacca didn't even hesitate. He just hugged her like he was goading Han for still being frightened of her in his silly way, and that -- she --

Oh, by the Force, she laughs. Aching and deep and fit into her sides, and she can't stop until she's crying.

\- -- - -- -

"You're mooning over her so bad."

"Am not," Finn objects, a few days later, only a little breathless since he's doing his exercise of a short walk and light lifts today, and he so is.

"Yet you know exactly who I'm talking about," Poe interjects ridiculously. "All you do is think about her. And talk about her." He grins like he doesn't really mind, though, helping Finn's broad shoulders ease back into his seat with minimal back strain. It's healing nicely, but it's still one of the ugliest wounds he's ever seen.

"Yes." He can't even deny it. Can't. "Did she ever talk about me? Say anything before she left?"

"Besides declaring her undying love?"

"She really d-- Poe." His tone is all commanding and not as excited as seconds ago. "Would you -- Bebe, tell Poe not to jest about these things."

The droid beeps at both of them.

"Right," he says, flashing his frown at Poe.

"She told me you were one of the most honorable men she knew," he finally says, all serious and a look he can't quite place. "She said we were very lucky to have you."

But she was the one that was attuned to the Force and defeated Kylo Ren. She was special, and he.. he was no one. Nothing. "But her."

"She really thought you weren't gonna wake for a while, man. She cried once."

"She _cried_?" Finn half-shouts. "What is wrong with me? I should have blasted Kylo Ren! I should've put him in the garbage shoot with Phasma!"

"The what?"

"Sanitation," Finn huffs impatiently as an explanation. "What else?"

"What else what? About Rey?" He's back to being smarmy again, but mhmm, he already told Finn his most embarrassing stories when it comes to the fairer, scarier gender.

"Did she say anything specific?"

"She talked to you a lot of the time she was in here. And she kissed you."

And he near goes into cardiac arrest and sputters out nothing. "She what now? Kissed me?" And he'd missed it because his minor wounds were healing?

"Forehead!" Poe shouts. "I meant that she kissed your forehead!" And he's so loud and panicked, as worked up as Finn is, that they're both just idiots.

While the machine monitoring his heart calms down, 'cause oh, he just -- he really likes that woman, he supposes, if he should start being honest with himself -- Poe takes a quip of a deep breath to bring himself back down from all that excitement.

"She held your hand a lot, too."

"Mmm." He's happy, he is, and it's not like she abandoned him. He's with the Resistance. And Poe. And BB-8. And even General Organa sits with him sometimes. She asks him questions about the First Order, and he doesn't feel so useless, but it's all mechanics while she's out there training to be a _Jedi _possibly.__

__She's just so bright, and he's so happy for her here in these beige walls, but he's really starting to miss her._ _

__It isn't so bad somedays, until he thinks of something he wants to tell her and the droid that brings him water beeps at him. Rey would know what it was trying to say. What he was trying to say._ _

__"I'mma bring you more yellow stuff," Poe decides suddenly just then. It's becoming a bit more obvious that he's here to keep him from getting too lonely, from getting too sad._ _

__And he's not. Not really._ _

\- -- - -- -

__He's had nightmares where he's felt unbearable pain._ _

__Where he's being fucking _conditioned_ again. _ _

__Sometimes he dies, it's so bad, and sometimes he's seeing others die, but it really only frightens him and stalls his heart and catches his breath and wrenches his body shock-frozen with how he can't think anything other than Rey dying in his dreams and how real it felt._ _

__Sometimes Kylo Ren kills her. He runs his cheap lightsaber through her like he did to Han, and her breaths are strained when he finally reaches her, blood so red on the snow, and she's trying to speak but all there is coming out is blood. It's everywhere. More of it than should be in Rey; she's so tiny, that much shouldn't fill her or be pouring out of her or _gushing_ out of her stomach, and she takes her bloody hand and reaches up to his face to leave streaks of red across his nose, over his lips, and then he's a Trooper, and he's killed her._ _

__And he can't._ _

__Finn really _can't_ after those dreams. _ _

__He wonders around the base now, since walking is slow but manageable by himself now, with no one paying much mind to him. Why should they? Of course the First Order wasn't gone._ _

__Of course._ _

__"Finn." It's Leia, General -- Leia, and he has half a parsec to coming up with a believable story to be wherever he is 'cause she's staring at him like that. It's no wonder Han was so scared of her. "Big Deal," she addresses, her bare hint of a smile looking so tired. "Han used to call you that. He told me."_ _

__He almost asks if he told her recently, since myths and legends and whatnot, but he bites his tongue. He can't quite talk himself out of a corner when the only person he's really talked to for a while is Poe. It isn't impressive._ _

__"There's a meeting soon, if you'd like to attend," she tells him gently. Unobtrusively. She's more subtle a diplomat than Hux gave her credit for. "There'll be new information."_ _

__He nods once, but then he can't stop. "I might," he says, trying to not seem too thrilled. "Probably. If there isn't anything else to do. Yeah. Yes."_ _

__"The start of the hour," she tells him. She's halfway down the corridor when she tells him she's sure Rey is alright._ _

\- -- - -- -

__She's balancing on one hand._ _

__She can feel the Force pulsing all around her, throughout her, and she's starting to think she just couldn't recognize it beneath the Jakku sun. It's strange to think she's ever existed without this, but she knows now she probably hasn't, like she hasn't lived this long without her family._ _

__An ocean surrounding an island._ _

__R2 beeps and whirs when the energy of the Force through her levitates him next to flying rocks and small boulders, and it's pulsing everywhere. It's thrumming through her veins, encasing all the air around her, a reassuring whisper and a beacon of guidance, and then it's gone._ _

__"You worry about your friends," Luke observes, everything gentle about it._ _

__She's too agile to crash to the ground, agile, because _there's no such thing as luck_ , she's been told so, but falling gracefully is still a fall, and she has to squint her eyes against the sun to look up at Luke. "Friend," she corrects. She's only got the one. Besides BB-8. And Chewie. And now R2. And maybe Poe. And now Luke. _ _

__"Have you heard anything new?" He reaches down with his metal hand to help her up. She takes it, but it's a fight to keep herself from frowning._ _

__"Not before a few days past. He still hadn't woken."_ _

__"Do you feel cause to worry?"_ _

__"I haven't decided," she admits._ _

__He almost smiles at that, aged and weathered his face is. "Don't think, Rey. Feel. Trust your focus, your instincts."_ _

__"Anything else is a distraction," she repeats (maybe just a little monotonously). They've been here before._ _

__"It can misguide you," he tells her. Again. "What are you feeling?"_ _

__And she wants to say she maybe feels Finn laughing somewhere, sees that ridiculous look he gets like he's trying to contain it with his scrunched up eyes, his broad grin. She isn't sure if it's the Force or hope, but the longer she tries to listen and feel and just _exist_ , the more she realizes she can't sense anything bad._ _

\- -- - -- -

__"Finn," Poe whispers delicately, giving his shoulder a gentle shake. "Finn, wake up."_ _

__Finn cracks open an eye, sees Poe beaming down at him, and nope. Nope. "Nope," he grumbles, groggy with sleep. "Move along." He rolls over, turning his back to the most annoying pilot in the Resistance. What time of night even was it?_ _

__"Finn, seriously." He's shoved and then he's whacked, and he flails up so he's sitting with murder in his eyes. "You just hit me with a pillow? _Really_?"_ _

__"What was I supposed to do?" Poe grins crooked, but then -- that laugh._ _

__"Rey," Finn whispers, just to wince at the faint pain of twisting his back so fast. He looks for her, but the only one in this small room is Poe, and the dull lights must be playing tricks on him._ _

__"It's not _really_ her," Poe 'splains. "But I kinda borrowed the droid, and well.. yeah, that's it." His grin's a little too much of a joyride, but maybe he always had a penchant to crash and burn and just no one knew. "General Organa offered her my job, y'know," he mumbles while he fiddles with the droid. It looks ancient, and it isn't doing anything. "She was just -- c'mon, bring her back." He gives the droid a scathing look before glancing back to Finn, but that's when it happens. _ _

__A hologram of Rey all slightly fuzzy and unfocused and blue until she brings herself closer, and she looks just as entranced as Finn does._ _

__He just hopes Finn won't cry._ _

__Not that he blames him. Poe's a bit of a crier when it comes to women himself._ _

__Not really._ _

__Finn's screwed._ _

__"You're alright," Rey says, sounding rather close to tears herself._ _

__"And you," Finn says, and oh, how he really tries to keep a straight face, to not wince when he draws himself up, to just -- "I miss you," he blurts tactfully._ _

__There's a second where Rey's still like a malfunction, but then her grin is so bright, and Poe feels a bit like an intruder. Neither of them notice him bid his leave, anyways._ _

__"I miss you," she repeats, easier to say than she thought it'd be, and she laughs as light as anything. "There's so much I've wanted to tell you."_ _

__"And there's so much I want to tell you! Not about the Force or anything, 'cause I'm not -- I haven't done a lot but stay here, but you --" he stops abruptly. "You're wearing my jacket."_ _

__That makes her stop, too, and absently, she reaches up to touch the collar of the worn leather. "You gave it to me."_ _

__"Like, months ago, Rey. And then you returned it!" he fires back, laughing and affronted and just. His heart feels warmer. More full. He wonders if she can sense that, but he's just a hologram to her, too, not really liquid or solid. Like that yellow food._ _

__He snorts, but she's chortling, too. "You looked colder than I was. And then I thought I'd keep it safe until --" _you woke up,_ "-- you could wear it again. I'm sorry."_ _

__"I'm not," he says quickly, his voice as fast as his heart, but there's no machine to monitor him, no one else here but Rey. "It looks good on you."_ _

__"Of course it does," she smiles, just a bit cheeky. "Space is cold."_ _

__"Did you have to mend it?"_ _

__"Not too much," she replies. "But I'm good with stitches."_ _

__He knows. Breathing feels a little easier. "How's your training going?"_ _

__"The things I've learned, Finn, the things I'm learning to do. You wouldn't believe me if I told you," she repeats, from days and days ago, and he remembers. All of it._ _

__"I can't wait to see it," he says, but her excitement cuts him off._ _

__"And I can't wait for you to meet Luke! He's.. he's everything the legends said. And more," she adds, just a little strangely. But happily. He can tell, even if the connection isn't the best. "You're -- why aren't you wearing a shirt?"_ _

__He doesn't really want to tell her that the new skin on his back is still a bit irritated by clothes. It's doable and he can manage just fine, but he'd still rather not. "Why'd you leave without saying goodbye?" he asks instead, half a tease so she's laughing instead of worrying how she thought he wouldn't wake up._ _

__"I did. You just couldn't hear. They thought you might be able to, but they didn't know for sure."_ _

__"What'd you say to me?"_ _

__"Poe told you I was there constantly, didn't he?"_ _

__"Maybe," he admits. He can feel his grin a little too toothy, but her embarrassment's gone to how nice this is._ _

__"I told you that I was sure we'd see each other again, Finn."_ _

__He wants to let that resonate in him, but he can't just stare at her dumbly for hours._ _

__..On second thought._ _

__"You weren't wrong, Rey," he finally manages to say. He can almost feel his hand holding hers. "We -- here. We are."_ _

__"In person," she protests. "Soon."_ _

__"Already coming back?"_ _

__"I think Luke's ready to come back. "I --" Oh, her laugh. "I made up stories about General Organa to tell him when he asked, since I hadn't gotten to know her well."_ _

__"Tell him that Solo and I left a Captain of the First Order in a garbage compactor," he snorts. He laughs harder at the look on her face. "I think he'd like that."_ _

__"I think Luke will like you."_ _

__"Yeah?" he asks._ _

__"Yeah."_ _

\- -- - -- -

__"So how'd it go?"_ _

__"How'd what go?"_ _

__"Your talk with Rey."_ _

__"Poe, that was.. days ago. A lot. Like, five."_ _

__"I had orders," Poe huffs, falling into the chair in Finn's room he calls his. "Did you tell her?"_ _

__"Tell her -- say -- tell her what? Feet off the lamp! Poe," he grumbles. He takes his pillow and throws it at him, but all Poe does is curl it to his chest, and pfft. "Thank you, also. For doing all that so I could talk to her."_ _

__"You're welcome, buddy," he mumbles, shaking it off. "I'm your only friend, 'sides."_ _

__"Are not."_ _

__"Am, too."_ _

__"What about Bebe?"_ _

__BB-8 stops swaying from side to side to look between the both of them unimpressively. "He misses Rey," Poe interprets before muttering like a child. "Traitor."_ _

__"Never thought I'd relate to a droid."_ _

__"Bebe isn't just a droid!"_ _

__"The Millennium Falcon isn't just a ship," Finn recites, rolling his eyes. He reaches up to rub at the scar over his right collarbone, and as usual, he wins all fights with Poe._ _

__"Do you need anything? Salve? A medic? Me to tell Rey you're mooning over her all the way back to Jakku."_ _

__"Am not."_ _

__Poe gives him a look with two much eyebrow. "If I think it real hard, do you think she can hear it?"_ _

__"That isn't how the Force works."_ _

__"It might," he persists. He stretches and yawns and looks seconds away from falling asleep._ _

__"What were your orders?" Finn finally works up enough nerve to ask._ _

__"Flying. Keeping a look out, sorta. No sign of anymore airstrikes, but we know the Order's out there. Just haven't found them yet."_ _

__"Oh." A pause. "That's not good," he whispers._ _

__"Nope," Poe grins, before he yawns like an ewok. "I'm gonna sleep."_ _

__"Right," agrees Finn. A plan. "I'm gonna take a walk."_ _

__"Force be with you, right?"_ _

\- -- - -- -

__"Looking good, Resistance Man!" Poe shouts, grinning and excited and far too daredevil to _not_ sneak up behind anyone with a blaster aimed and ready in their hands. _ _

__Finn startles, but a few more days apart had been too long, and it doesn't hurt his back when his best friend crushes him in a hug. "You're back already!"_ _

__"Yeah, man! The suspicious site we thought we found was long abandoned." And with the many that had been lost, well, each trek out with all his group able to return back was something to grin about. Word was he hadn't for a while. "You gettin' any better with those?"_ _

__"Some," he shrugs a facade of modesty until he remembers shooting the cannons of the Starkiller. He pats Poe hard on the back, pulls back to grin at him and refrains from saying how he was considering taking the job of flying with him. "I'm giving those panels hell, alright. Ain't nothing left of them."_ _

__"That's our hero. You wanna celebrate? Get a drink? Trade war stories?"_ _

__"Uh," he pauses to think, because of course not. But Poe was joking anyways. "Not really. Drink what?"_ _

__"Drink.. you ever had a drink?"_ _

__"Water," Finn says, like he doesn't know if that's the correct, acceptable answer or not._ _

__"Oh, no," Poe sighs. "Oh, no."_ _

__"What?" he frowns, only a little self-conscious. He knows he's sheltered, sorta, but like he didn't want Rey to know he was a Stormtrooper since that wouldn't make him just Finn to her, he doesn't really want Poe to know the extent of it either._ _

__"What else _haven't_ you done, huh?"_ _

__Poe stares at him a little. A lot. He slants his gaze up and to the left. "..Could you give me examples?"_ _

__"Oh, no. C'mon, then. We've got to start living your life vicariously through drinks and bad choices and.. maybe we'll introduce you to more females so you can learn to talk to Rey without gettin' all flustered."_ _

__"I don't --"_ _

__"You have problems talking to authority, too? I can fix that," Poe promises, just. Beaming. "We're gonna have fun."_ _

__"What?" Finn chokes, reaching for Poe's arm to bring him down. Bringing it down. "Doing _what_?"_ _

__And then it's Lessons In Life by Poe Dameron._ _

__"The first drink is always the worst; it might burn a bit."_ _

__"It does," he gasps after gulping down his glass. Poe shakes in laughter next to him, and Finn tries to blink away how it burns his eyes and blocks off his throat and slowly kills him. "Oh, that's awful. Oh, f-- give me another one."_ _

__

__"You've really never kissed a girl?"_ _

__"Where would I have?" Finn shouts, just a bit to be heard over the music blaring. "I haven't seen that many!"_ _

__"Whoever you do it, man, don't think about it! Just let it happen," and four drinks in, and Poe Dameron is the wisest man he's ever met._ _

__

__"Nothing, I repeat, _nothing_ is better than flying." Poe pauses, though, and he laughs sloppily, and he clinks Finn's empty glass with his. "Almost nothing."_ _

__"What else?" he asks, just the picture of innocence and a heart so big, he's laying it all out on the table. "How do you know?"_ _

__"Finn," he says, so solemn and drunk and drunker it's hilarious. "I can't lie to you and those eyes. I've cried after sex before. It's been that good."_ _

__"It's been.. what?"_ _

__

__"You just gotta shoot, Finn."_ _

__"Just gotta shoot!"_ _

__"Anyone says you owe them, money, you --"_ _

__"Find a princess," General Organa says to interrupt them, partially unimpressed, partially amused. "Or a Bebe or Artoo unit."_ _

__"Ma'am," Poe says before he chortles into his fist with a poorly concealed cough. "We were discussing, uh."_ _

__"Strategy," Finn jumps in, taking that cue from Poe. "..Coding. Droid things. Yeah."_ _

__"Yes," Poe agrees._ _

__"Right." Leia purses her lips, tries not to think of Han and Chewie when they were hiding something. Or being idiots. "We've just received a message from the Falcon. I thought you might like to know."_ _

__"The Falcon?" Finn perks up, knocking over half a table of empty glasses. "Rey? Luke? They're coming back?"_ _

__And they both look so hopeful. "Told you," Poe mutters._ _

__"They're going to the Dagobah System first, but then they're coming home, Finn."_ _

__"Dagobah?"_ _

__"At least she doesn't want to go back to Jakku," Finn mutters sulkily. But he really isn't at all. He's so relieved. He's so happy._ _

__His lungs are opening up again, and Leia looks like she's breathing, and Poe's seconds from passing out._ _

__And it's a hell of a start._ _


	2. Instead of the Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Okay," Finn whispers to himself. He sucks in a deep breath and then another, and he could laugh, how jarring this feels. "This is okay. I'm okay."
> 
> "Y'know," Poe tries to console. He knows by now to not be looking at Finn when he says it, 'cause _y'know, Poe, y'know I really **don't**_. "It took me two months to get back in an x-wing after my first real bad crash."

_"Where'd you get the burn on your arm?" Finn will ask her days and days from now._

_They'll have been asking and answering questions all night, gone on for three of the best hours in his life in a while, and Rey laughs automatically, a sleep-deprived sorta exhausted and delirious giggle she can't contain from the memory. It's a rush of air to his lungs, how light this is, infectious and laughing and their shoulders a mere five centimeters apart lying on the floor of the common room, a touch of their wrists and a brush of their knuckles and a stretch of her fingers before he'd locked them together gradually._

_"It was stupid," she chokes between gasping breaths._

_But "No," he refuses to believe, because she's no such thing when she's chortling and her sides are aching to hold together when she loses herself when he actually snorts. "I bet it wasn't."_

_"It was! Blaster. Old one. I misfired it and there was a reflective panel Chewie didn't tell me about. Luke lost it," she adds, like it's hilarious instead of frightening, her open-mouth laughter hacking so hard a tear slips from the corner of her eye._

_He'll have to fight back the urge to swipe it away, biting on his lip to keep from saying something stupid again, but she'll flex her fingers before squeezing, pressing their palms closer, shifting just a little so his arm's warm against hers, so their shoulders bump to commemorate question ninety-eight. They're counting._

_Only she'll have stopped laughing, miraculously, and something -- something in him really doesn't want to look at her when she turns her head to watch him in seriousness. She'll be a stalled breath, her voice so quiet next to his ear that he almost_ can't. _"Do you remember anything about your family?"_

_And there are some things he won't ask her 'cause it seems like she isn't ready to answer them, or y'know, admit they're real (he's all for that, if it helps), but she -- this -- he doesn't -- "I don't know," he sighs, a little harder than he'd meant to._

_She doesn't speak, though, doesn't interrupt, and they've been here before. Even if it takes all night. "I was an infant," he continues quietly, not sadly. It's a weird thing, grieving. "Most kids don't remember anything in their early years anyway, right?"_

_"Right," she whispers. Even if she'd had some assistance in forgetting. Finn squeezes her hand -- or will._

_"I think I see them sometimes. Like, in dreams, but that's a little silly. Stupid," he chides himself, but he's smiling when he cants his head to see her studying his face. "I think I dreamed of you, too, or I did, I guess, but I don't really remember when I wake up. I just." He's about to say he just_ feels _it, but that's even more silly and stupid when her eyes are that brown and bright and seeing him. "I just.. yeah. Yes."_

_"Yes," she repeats, the pretty curl of her smile all for the tiled ceiling. The silence pulls and stretches comfortably, and sometime in his mind searching for something he doesn't know about her to ask for question one-double-zero, she's gone more silent, more still. "Finn."_

_"Rey."_

_"I want to say something," she'll tell him._

_And he listens._

_He feels his back set on fire when she says Kylo Ren's name, and Ben, and he doesn't know why he never connected the pieces when Poe told him he'd use to play with a kid as diplomatic as his ma but with the real smarts to make a 3PO unit himself. It makes too much sense._

_"The anger," she'll say, each word like an admittance, "and the resentment and the fear in him that I saw, I understand it."_

_Not that it's justification, but she'll tell him that she can sense parts of it in her, too, that it's there, that with Luke it's better to share for perspective and focus, that it isn't controlling her and rearing its head like a mask, that the emotion makes her a smidgen more human than she thought a Jedi would have, just so he knows._

_"I just wanted to tell you."_

_Something that's going on in her head. Her heart. And she smiles like a relief, but opening herself up like that, prying at her rib cage and releasing all those thoughts -- it takes him a moment. A few moments._

_But he realizes it's an all new tier of trust, more important than manning blasters and cannons. It's something else entirely._

_She curls back onto her side, her chin prodding at his shoulder, and he doesn't know what to say. A lot of things come to mind, but she's seconds away from sleep._

\- -- - -- -

Rey's definitely seen sand. And now that she's discovered the wonder of snow, the blessing of rain, and how _fun_ oceans are, she never wants to see a desert again. Sand's awful, coarse. Gets everywhere.

Swamps aren't much better; though, her curiosity won over the parts of her thinking _better not_ leave the Falcon to wander around Dagobah. At least until she fell in the marsh.

But this trip isn't for her -- it's for Luke.

And he.. he doesn't know what he's expecting to see. There's so much guilt, so much _I'm sorry_ to the pull of the Force he can feel binding him to Leia. And Rey. And Ben.

He'd failed the boy, his nephew, but all that pain, all the rage brimming beneath his hurt and twisting into hatred and anger and Kylo Ren, he'd felt it, too. He had been angry at the world more than he had a right to be, but Ben. He'd simply failed him.

Luke doesn't know what he's expecting to find here, if any of it even exists. Yoda's home, the tin of his lunch he still swears he'd forgotten by the weird looking boulder. The clearing in the trees where he'd beheaded Darth Vader.

He doesn't think it'll still be there, the helmet, his face. He's unsure he wants it to be, but he's searching. He brings in only what he takes with him, no lightsaber this time, and just his conscience out of the exile he'd disciplined himself to.

The helmet isn't there.

He's more relieved than he should be.

It suddenly feels like it's about time, a pull and a prod that had stretched and tided ever nearer to him, a pinprick in the light of his essence, he can feel it, drawing him in and welcoming him back, and "Leia," he responds, reaching out. Her name feels again like running away, like regret, like _I'm sorry_ all over again, but it's so warm.

\- -- - -- -

"We're in the Dagobah System," the hologram of Rey tells him.

Well, not just him. It's a day old message and tons of people have probably already seen it, like General Leia and C-3PO to see Artoo and Poe 'cause he's nosey and a few others, he's sure of it, but now it's him, and he -- it's just.

It's just started to strike him that the best moments in his life as Finn are comprised of her, 'cause really, when Poe asked him last night sometime after the first drink and before Leia appeared just _what_ he wanted to _do_ with his life exactly, he was shocked into an existential crisis. He didn't really know what he wanted to do. And when Poe asked instead what he enjoyed, well, all of it happened on the Falcon with Rey. And Solo. Mostly Rey.

He didn't really know.

"I got to make another repair on the Falcon," she enthuses to no one, looking both sheepish and excited and maybe still a little unused to chattering as much as Poe does with people that want to listen, even if they're leagues and leagues away. "I upgraded the radio, so the --" a low, pathetic whine, "-- _we_ ," she corrects, laughing, "we upgraded it, didn't we, Chew-Chew?"

Chewbacca answers her with a fond-sounding grunt, and a flash of a furry hand covers the other side of the screen before Rey swats _Chew-Chew_ away.

She tries to continue to say that they're all well, that they'll be back soon, but she's laughing through the assurance and saying that Luke is nearly finished here, whatever he's doing.

Finn can't help but chuckle at how ridiculously bright those two are and for half a second feels like he's laughing with Rey sometime yesterday, bored on the ship in a swamp that's strangely familiar like he'd dreamed it.

"We'll see you soon," she continues to say, too general to be a promise, but he's sure of it, somehow. They'd said it.

The edges of her face go translucent. Then unfocused. Then nothing. But soon.

\- -- - -- -

"You wanna learn how to fly?"

"Me?" Finn guffaws indignantly. He pulls a standard issue grey jacket over his new standard issue grey shirt. "I can fly anything," he mocks.

Poe glances up at him from whatever he's reading just to scoff. "Mhmm. Try this one," he tells him, reaching into a crate for a way cooler black coat. "We should start figuring out what you wanna do with your life just in case you discover a calling to running a cantina or starting a band in said cantina or -- what was it you said? Maybe you'll be a smuggler."

But Finn's just kinda memorized by the texture of this jacket. "This is nice." 'Cause he doesn't really know. Where he's falling into place here. Life.

"Put it on, don't burn holes through it. We'll have to get you some real clothes soon, also."

"Is that allowed?" Finn wants to know before he can stop himself.

It hurts Poe's innards just a little. "Yeah, Finn. You can wear anything you want. Unless," he adds, all a flyaway smile, a well-worn set of crinkles framing his eyes, "you wear another infirmary gown. I can't let you do that anymore."

"They're surprisingly comfortable," he defends good-naturedly, grinning at his reflection in the smudged mirror.

"Don't I know it," Poe snorts, waving off Finn's instantly questioning, accusing look. "Crashed once, broke a few ribs and half a leg."

"That's.. half a leg?" he gapes, gone wide-eyed and crushed and just a little angry since Poe Dameron is one of the nicest people he's ever met. He shouldn't ever be hurt like that. It doesn't sit right in his gut. "Are you okay? Does it still hurt?"

"Finn," Poe chuckles, obviously endeared, but come on, man, how do you live with a heart so big? "I'm fine. It was, like, a millennium ago."

"Alright," Finn mutters, fighting a smile to take the hint. Then, because he's not necessarily been privy to any good influences, "Best pilot in the Resistance, sure."

"It wasn't me, it was a mistake."

"Sure, like what?"

"I let someone else fly! Some new kid a couple years back," he huffs. They'd all come up to him taunting and sniggery, the best new self-important hotshot pieces of fodder sniping a _so you're the best pilot in the Resistance, huh?_ with ideas of flame and glory and.. yeah, that was Poe about twelve years ago.

Alright.

"Y'know," Poe continues. He waits for Finn to stop meticulously folding laundry, the kripping sanitation has-been. "You also have the choice to walk away."

"Leave?" He says it like it's ridiculous, but Poe's rarely ever been more serious. "Right when it's all starting?"

"Really, Finn. We don't know where the First Order is. We think Ren is dead, and --"

And his spine feels like it's scorching. His blood runs snow cold, his legs feel paralyzed like that droid kept telling him he should have been 'cause his readings were so good, he thought he was malfunctioning, and then it's over. And then he can breathe.

"-- and we gotta get you looked at."

"What? I'm fine," Finn protests, waving his worry off with a look that can't be as reassuring as he thinks it is. He tries not to think about it, and well, that works.

"What if we got you a blue jacket."

"I like it," he enthuses, jumping at the new topic Poe's grins always know when to change to. "I think I like blue."

"Maybe Green. There's a lotta green on Yavin Four," he suggests nonchalantly, finally putting down his book to box up the rest of the crates. "And Naboo. You could go there, y'know."

Finn makes a face, brows all creased and confused. "And do what, _y'know_?"

"Build a home, start a life. That's always a choice, getting out. If it's what you want." He gives him three seconds or so to think, comes to stand next to him in front of the mirror. His hair's looking pretty good today. "Have you thought about it?"

"I don't know," Finn whispers. "Should I know?" He was always told what to do, where to be, _who_ to be. His mind goes a little fuzzy like he's drinking what Poe called water or going into another minor panic attack. "Did you know? What you wanted to do? Is it destiny? Do you -- why're you looking like that?"

Poe rubs at the back of his neck. "I flew my first ship when I was six," he says. "There was never anything else out there for me." When Finn doesn't say anything, he clasps his shoulder gently. "I know you like having this cause. A kriffing good cause at that, what with jackets and caf and a kitchen open all the time."

"Yeah," he mumbles. Really just a kid without a clue.

"..You'd look pretty nice in orange."

\- -- - -- -

Han was terrified of being a father.

Silly flyboy, he never suspected she'd realize his cocky grin was a facade he'd kept up for years. But she _knew_ him, and he'd told her she did a good job when she told him she was pregnant. Then he threw up for nearly an hour before coming inside and falling into her arms with a _hold me_ she didn't know which of them whispered. They'd debated how good a set of parents they'd be, what the chances of them actually making it were, and he'd screamed louder than she had during the delivery.

Afterwards, he held Ben in his arms like a hydrospanner, looked at him like he was the most precious thing he'd ever laid eyes on, and it was the start of another love story.

Han had carried Ben everywhere, had modified a safe, small copilot seat for him in the Falcon, had made sure their son never knew need or want and spoiled him endlessly with toys and gadgets. Ben's favorite stuffed animal was Chewbacca during nap times when he could cuddle up to the surprisingly soft-hearted wookie, and his favorite uncle was Lando, much to her chagrin. They were all so happy after the War, it.. it shouldn't have been such a surprise how well they'd all settled into their roles. And then been cast out of them.

She hadn't the heart to speak Ben's name for years. It was too much longing, too much heartache, and she always _knew_ that scoundrel would bring it to her. Dammit. She's getting too old for another cause to take.

_"How you doin', sweetheart?"_

\- -- - -- -

"Oh," Finn says, sorta vaguely, awkwardly uncomfortable. It's been, like, a day.

Where is this breeze coming from.

"That wasn't a yes," Poe says with that face that means seriousness and devil-may-care and respectability and recklessness.

He can tell it's that, it's what he recognizes on General Organa's face because he's heard stories and Poe sorta idolizes Solo and Leia -- the General -- she's probably seeing a smirk twelve parsecs wide, and that's probably why she indirectly suggested Poe stay grounded at the base for a while.

"Not for a bit, maybe," Poe continues, trying to pitch the idea of Finn flying with him on his next set of orders. "Few weeks? Four days?"

"Not quite specific."

"Of course," Leia interjects, "there's plenty of work for you to keep busy with here."

"There.. this isn't just a fly around nearby systems," Finn guesses, reads in their faces since he's gotten much better at that without all those blasted masks everywhere. "You guys find something?"

"What _might_ be something," Poe says before General Organa can say anything that negates his entire life. "We just wanna check it out. It could be a good time to get you back in action, buddy. Worth thinking about."

Bebe chirps loudly, whirs and circles Finn before bumping into his knees. "What's he say?" he asks Poe, reaching down to pat the droid.

"He says not to worry, that you'll be safe with him," he interprets, snickering into his fist. "He's not wrong," Poe thinks. Hopes. "And we aren't checking that activity out, not us anyways. We're just going to Cloud City to pick up some cargo, nothing dangerous," he promises, and oh, that makes Leia smile.

So "Sure," Finn shrugs, not just because they're looking at him expectantly, but General Organa actually looking for once like she hadn't lost everything was grounding.

More than when Poe complained she'd likely ground him to base soon. He clasps him on his shoulder, cuffs him gently on his ear. "Good," he grins, "'cause we're leavin' in.. soon. We'll be back sooner."

Well, that'd have been nice to know. "What's the cargo?"

"Lando."

"What's a Lando?"

"Not cargo," Leia says. "Lando's a man."

\- -- - -- -

"Okay," Finn whispers to himself. He sucks in a deep breath and then another, and he could laugh, how jarring this feels. "This is okay. I'm okay."

"Y'know," Poe tries to console. He knows by now to not be looking at Finn when he says it, 'cause _y'know, Poe, y'know I really **don't**_. "It took me two months to get back in an x-wing after my first real bad crash."

"But I didn't -- nothing's gonna shoot at us, right? Is there a threat of that? Are we prepared? Do you have a plan?"

"Always," Poe lies, somewhat, "but no. This isn't that kind of trip."

"Okay. Okay. Then I can copilot this ship."

"I'm right here for ya, buddy," he smiles, _grins_ when Bebe chirps and bobbles back and forth. "You know who Lando Calrissian is?"

"What if Rey comes back when we're in Bespin?" Finn asks with a short sigh. He keeps flipping a switch on the console he shouldn't, but -- okay.

"Well," Poe starts. Who cares about General Calrissian anyways. "Then it'll be her standing in the hangar to meet you since you couldn't meet her," he shrugs. But then he tries to really think about it since he can't really imagine everything going through Finn's mind, all that irrational worry he can't shake off that still creeps into his dreams. So he imagines this possibility like he'll tell it to Finn's kids (if he ever gets drunk enough to really get that talk in, fucking _apply the handbrake_ , what's wrong with him, when did he turn into his dad) and hopefully his own godchildren.

"She'll run to see you like you'd probably bolt to see her, any of your back pain shot to the skies," he predicts, "and I'll be watching all of it from the steps, fighting back a soft, hard cry at how sweetly she falls into your arms for the hug to end all hugs."

" _Poe_ ," but he's blushing, and Poe decides to postpone their rush through lightspeed for a few seconds more.

"I don't know what you guys are like talking to each other, but after you've said hi to her four separate times, she'll say she misses you." And Finn can't even laugh at that because he's considering it, and Poe just -- he's _seeing_ it, and why hadn't it ever happened to him, goodness. "Time'll just sorta stop. You'll focus too much on hugging to talk, so.. about twenty-eight minutes later," Poe laughs, so _loud_ that Finn shoves at his arm.

"She won't care if you're late," he continues. "Why would she? How do you think she felt when you woke up without her there?"

"Relieved I was finally out of that coma."

"She's gonna be psyched all over again that you're alive, Finn. She won't care when or where or what."

"Right," Poe relents, tearing through the wariness in his voice. "I know you're right. You usually are," he admits, a little too chagrined.

"Say it again."

"Poe."

He busies himself with double-checking the coordinance, mutters something suspiciously like _not sorry_. "It is gonna be nice, whenever it happens. I'm sure of it."

And then lights are streaking over the window, and Cloud City was close, anyways.

And then tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed! 
> 
> Stay tuned, 'cause next up we have the fated reunion, and I've stocked up on tissues. We'll need them! 
> 
> I hope you lovelies have a merry Christmas, xx!


	3. The Last of It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"You intimidate them,"_ Poe had teased him once. It just wasn't true since they should be intimidated by Poe instead, the best fighter pilot in the Resistance. 
> 
> Except no one was, strangely. 
> 
> Poe just wasn't that sorta guy. 
> 
> He was in charge of fetching their napkins at meals.

They're gone and back in maybe an hour and a half.

This Lando Calrissian figure calls Poe a lowlife, cheating, double-crossing scum before he hugs him quickly and squeezes, and when he introduces himself with all his twelve esteemed titles to Finn, it's a little intimidating. "Just call me Lando," he bids him, not quite like a commanding general but not as politely generous as a governor all the same.

"Finn. I'm with the Resistance," he smiles, 'cause this man's as lively as Poe is, and he thinks this is his first ever handshake. He feels so human.

"It's my pleasure to meet you, Finn. I've just got a crate to collect, if there's room." But then he pauses, the quirk of his mouth and the lilt of his voice playing the question like a joke. "You didn't bring that hunk of junk, did you?"

Now Finn doesn't know Governor Calrissian, but Poe told him enough when they were waiting for the guy to show up. And his eyes look really sad and really empty and it isn't a joke at all. "We didn't bring the Falcon, no."

"It's with Chewie on Dagobah," Poe adds in that unassuming way he does, casual and warm and a lot of nothing 'till it relaxes the recipient of all his nonchalant understanding and puts them to ease.

And it does, 'cause Governor Calrissian visibly relaxes and the joke in his voice sounds less like grief. "Awful place," he says. "Hate to think what could happen to my ship there."

"Your ship?" Poe scoffs. "Do you know how long I've waited to pilot the _actual_ Falcon?"

"Your dad did."

And Poe nearly falls over, disbelief coloring shock into his face. "He did not. He never told me that."

"You're right, he didn't fly her," Lando laughs, causing him to roll his eyes and collapse a bit.

"Rey flew it by herself," Finn just has to boast, casually leaning against a wall in the way he sometimes sees Poe do.

"You didn't help?"

He shakes his head. "I was shooting at the 'Troopers trying to take us down."

"Well," Lando says, shooting Poe a grinning look. "Is that why I'm told you're a Big Deal?"

And really now.

When they're talking inventory and basic needs and aiding the Resistance with funds and prospects Finn recognizes from all those papers General Organa encouraged him to look over for a bit of usefulness, he helps get everything back to the ship, everything but the crate Lando insists on carrying himself, they're gone and back in maybe an hour and a half.

Scanners pick them up without a problem so the landing's clear when Poe steers them back into Base, and Leia's there waiting for them with pilots waving lights to guide them obnoxiously in.

"That's not protocol," Poe complains, but who's worried about it?

Others file in and out of the ship while life continues on in animated chatter -- it seems they've inconveniently missed what Kraig calls a food fight that gave General Organa more grey hairs. _Of wisdom_ , of course, a practiced glare and a hidden smile all silently judging these youths and overgrown children and stiff Resistance tacticians because she remembers when they were snowball fights on Hoth and nights lounging and wasting away on Yavin.

Finn catches Poe's arm when he walks past him on the deck, stops him mid-laugh at something Jessika said. "Didn't you say they'd been friends?"

"Who? Oh," Poe says, something weird. There's a frown on both their faces while they watch Lando and their general sorta stare at each other, but then it's like time's pretty torn apart and away from how both their hearts ache, and they're hugging slowly like they really shouldn't be. "It was a long time ago."

\- -- - -- -

"His jacket," Leia says. She knew Han too well to be surprised even now, even as her fingers streak over the worn, faded cloth of the coat that had lasted so long.

"He stayed in Cloud City sometimes," Lando defends. He smiles crookedly, unsure if she ever knew that or not, but he remembers when it was their family of three visiting. One of Benny's old, forgotten toys is piled at the bottom of the crate with other more basic things.

"I know," she frowns, her brown eyes glassy and seeing straight through him. "You'd guilt him into making a holocall when he stayed."

That makes him pause, though, and it's fourteen years aside from the other eighteen odd ones wondering if she'll kill him. "I couldn't tell him to go back," he says. "I wouldn't have gone back."

And it's so easy by now to let it be. All that hurt, all this grief. It's been so many lifetimes. "You smugglers are all the same."

"Except he was a better man than I was."

She arches a thin, unimpressed brow. "Chewie was better than both of you."

And that's the bottom line, a quiver in the air, the husk of that damned nerf-herder's laugh.

\- -- - -- -

The next morning, Poe wakes Finn by flipping on the lights and temporarily blinding (dazzling) him with the (his) bright (smile). "You can't sleep in all day, buddy," he grins, tugging at the standard issue blanket. He doesn't tug too far, though, 'cause too many awkward incidents of naked people.

"Did I miss breakfast?" Finn asks groggily. He's too slow to mask his wince when he tries to sit up, but Poe's there with an arm around his back, a supportive hand to his legs to make the standing transition easier.

"Better everyday, Finn. We'll try a pillow under your knees tonight, that's what helped me. Tons of other things, too."

"I'm okay, I'm fine," Finn protests, 'cause he is, just not after lying still for hours. A couple hours now that he notices the time. "Why're we up this early?"

"Well," Poe starts tactfully. He turns around so he's not just gawking at his friend while he rummages around for clothes, glances at the empty bed belonging to the roomie. "Where's he at?"

"Said something about a Talia."

"When?"

"Five nights ago."

"Oh," he smiles. They haven't celebrated a wedding in a while. Hadn't had much cause to. "Also, I couldn't sleep." Woke up shaking and sweating and feeling like his head was being torn apart. "So we're awake now."

"Yeah?" His voice is all muffled and still groggy where he's pulling on a brown shirt. "What do you do when you don't sleep?"

"Just depends," he shrugs. And then he points to the boot Finn can't find. "I was helping a few guys clean up the cafeteria so the General wouldn't make them 'fore breakfast. It'd make them rethink having fun."

Finn knows just as well it wouldn't like he knows Poe woulda helped anyways. As much as rank matters, it doesn't, and nothing's too beneath him when it comes to pulling his weight or doing right by his team. He knows this all too well, just how kind his best friend is. "What else do you do three hours before dawn?"

"Bebe and I had a staring contest."

That makes him laugh, and Poe feels a little less guilty for waking him up. "Who won?"

"Bebe."

"How many rounds?"

"Twenty-eight."

"Aw," Finn laughs, like an ass. But a nice one. "What are we doing now, then?"

"Y'know how sometimes we sit on the landing deck with caf and Jess and you two laugh at the new guys running around in their orange suits?"

"Yes." It's too familiar to him, troops running in uniform, only here the pilots aren't in any formation he can identify. They don't get pushed back down when they fall and they don't get shot at by their superiors and there's a couple of them that shout pathetically like they're dying _could you fucking slow down!_ before they come inside and collapse and eat whatever sugary food the cafeteria's serving.

It's so nice.

"Guess what we're gonna do?" Poe preens, grinning from ear to ear as he opens the door, patting BB while he beeps and chirps.

"Do I get an orange suit?"

"You get an orange suit."

"Oh," Finn exclaims, holding his hand to his heart and just lighting up, "oh, _yes_."

"Yeah?" he chuckles, too excited and full of too much caf to be tired."Let's get you fitted."

And Finn looks really, _really_ rockin' in orange, and for the love of the Light, every time Leia's looked behind her for the past sixteen years, Poe is _right_ there.

"Get out of here," she chides gently without too much annoyance. When Finn and Poe both are visions in bright orange, they bring her lots of caf since it's still two hours before the rest of the base is supposed to be properly awake.

"You doin' okay, General?"

"Perfectly fine." She rolls her eyes, but she does it fondly, 'cause these flyboys are all the same. "How's your grandmother?"

"Probably tending her garden. Baking those cookies you hate. Telling embarrassing stories about me to someone, so probably really good," he guesses. "Want me to comm. her?"

"No."

"Me neither. We're gonna run, though."

She looks almost worried, the scant second she glances to Finn, something strange and maternal. "Are you going to be alright, Finn?"

He tries so hard not to startle. "Me? Being alright? I will be. I'm so gonna be." Running in (out of) formation, he could do this.

"I'm not sure we're equipped for more spinal reconstruction surgery," she quips, and oh, no, Solo did have an influence on her. "Be careful. And make sure you're back for dinner, there'll be an announcement you won't want to miss."

"Yes, ma'am," FN-2187 solutes before he can help it, but -- no. "Sure," he nods, casually since Poe's fighting a small grin. "We can make it, yeah."

"We can, boss."

"Don't wink, Dameron."

"I wasn't gonna."

\- -- - -- -

A few hours later, way beyond and just after lunch and so much low-speed running, it's like they're all dying.

"My blisters have blisters," Jess whines in a way that isn't really complaining.

"Worst game of capture the flag," Snap agrees, and the one with a lot of freckles Finn's learned is nicknamed Chives smacks him.

It wasn't too bad, truth be told. Poe helped tape his back before they started and even then they weren't full on sprinting for their lives in simulations. Whenever he had to slow down 'cause running (moving) hurt, they'd sit beneath the sky and Snap would tell them all crazy stories about his life before the Resistance.

There wasn't one.

It wasn't until Poe told him in a nice way to relax, that there wasn't anyone waiting to catch them slacking off so their actions could be reported in for appropriate punishment before he let himself breathe a little easier. And Poe didn't laugh at him. They all just sat there watching the X-wings soar in complicated practice maneuvers.

"Next leave," Poe tells him, "I'm gonna teach you how to drive a speeder."

"You couldn't drive a rolling bathtub."

"That was once."

"You haven't heard him sing yet, Finn," Jess pipes up. She's got her orange suit unzipped halfway so it's hanging around her waist, and now that she's up, she's stretching and looking at him and using his name and looking like she gives a damn.

Usually when they pass other pilots and fighters and guys from engineering in the halls, they all greet Poe by name and high five him and slap him on the back while ignoring Finn -- which is fine, because he's still sorta new, still an outsider, still stared at and whispered about and commended for things he doesn't even remember.

 _"You intimidate them,"_ Poe had teased him once. It just wasn't true since they should be intimidated by Poe instead, the best fighter pilot in the Resistance.

Except no one was, strangely.

Poe just wasn't that sorta guy.

He was in charge of fetching their napkins at meals.

"I haven't," he _actually_ grins, bright like the sun since they're all sweating like two of 'em.

All Poe does is dismissively shake his head. "I don't."

"You do," Jess _pfft's_.

"Not very well."

"Snap," Poe warns in a voice too cheery. Chives snorts, Jess guffaws before she's up and sprinting with Temmin taking after her. "I don't. Sing. In case you were wondering."

"I wasn't."

"Alright."

"I mean," Finn murmurs, letting all these bristles of grass scratch at his remarkably ungloved palms," I've heard you do sing. They might, uh. Talk about it?"

"No, they don't."

"No, they don't," he repeats questioningly, taking Poe's hand when he moves to carefully help him up. "Except you --"

"Not now," Poe tells him, and he's animated and distracting Finn all the walk back to the base.

\- -- - -- -

"Lessons in food, depending on what it is, you put this on everything."

"Everything?"

"Everything!" Poe confirms with a loud shout. Everyone in this cafeteria is loud and getting louder, but compared to all the silence of eating in Starkiller base, this is nice, and Poe's grabbed an extra everything so Finn can taste it all and let his tastebuds properly appreciate the delicacies he's been deprived of. "You haven't lived until you've had ice cream with your fries."

"And hot sauce," Finn just _moans_ with a fervor and a bite into his burger, and Poe -- oh, skies, he can't. "That girl's staring at you," he notices around another munch , but sure, 'cause he's the one moaning obliviously over greasy food and laughing like the happiest of them, right.

"Right."

"Can I --" But Finn doesn't have to finish asking for Poe's fries 'cause he just pushes them towards him kindly and laughs at the way it brightens his face.

"You didn't have much a selection as a Trooper, did you?" Poe asks him.

"You keep asking me that," he muffles, sauce dripping down his chin.

"I keep being amazed!" Poe laughs quietly at nothing, just watches Finn gorge on his food. "She's not looking at me," he realizes. He had his doubts anyways, but with a not-so subtle look to the left, oh, stars.

"What?"

"She's looking at you!" A little too _come hither_ -esque for his innocent little brother, but still.

Finn's only more confused. "Who?"

"That girl," he snorts, 'cause he's so wide-eyed and looking threatened, disoriented like when Gold Two asked him where he came from as a pick-up and he answered with an awkward _crashed a TIE-fighter_.

"No, thank you," he says, making a face. And while they're laughing at how coy neither of them are, open-mouthed chuckles and spitten out food, an announcement comes over the comm. that's too quiet in the loudness of the cafeteria to hear. Some chairs scrape against the floor while a few people hurry up and out, but a minute pause has most of whoever's left jumping up for more food.

"Cream cake," Poe says, his eyes instantly across the room and towards the dessert station.

Finn's a step ahead of him, already two feet away with a "Chocolate or vanilla?" when unspoken routine's had them splitting both, but all Poe does is holler.

"Your back moves just fine for sweets!" he shouts with a choked laugh, guffawing at the quick look Finn throws back at him. He's gonna have to see to it he can try more than just cakes and ice creams while there's still time for such frivolous things.

He catches Finn in line a couple minutes later, brings him his fizzy drink while he waits and tells him to guard their table with his life while he runs to the fresher for a mo.

"Do you want me to tell that girl how long it takes you to get your hair looking like that?" Finn grins too bright, stepping forward in line.

So he shoves him into the salads. "I'll tell her myself, maybe. I'll be right back."

And Poe doesn't even make it to the long stretch of the hallway that leads to the rooms kept on the east when he sees her.

Or walks into her, really, a sharp turn of the corner that stumbles and steadies both of them with his hands on her shoulders, and recognition dawns disbelief all at once.

"Rey?"

She blinks at him for a second that rolls on in a smidgen of self-consciousness 'cause maybe -- maybe that isn't her, but her smile catches everything, brightens everything, and he can feel the hilt of the lightsaber at her side hit him when she throws her arms around him quickly. "Poe Dameron! I didn't -- I'm sorry for running into you, I was just --"

"Hey," he says quickly, figuring this was the announcement they missed, Rey and _kriffing_ Luke Skywalker in this building somewhere. "You just get back? How was it? Where.. Finn," because he's just realized that set to her shoulders and this edge of the corridor is leading to the medbay, and oh, they got to know each other pretty well those days spent waiting for Finn to wake up. "They let him out of there a couple weeks ago," he's so happy to tell her, so relieved to see she's missed Finn as much as he knows he's missed her.

Just in case. He's been on the wrong side of pining, but who even knows, right?

"Good," she breathes, like all this worry's made it so she couldn't. "He's still alright? Everyone is?"

She looks like there's so much she could say, and there's so much he probably could, too, but he only smiles, tips her chin up so her frown curves happy. "He's in the cafeteria, honey. Go get 'im."

She touches his shoulder lightly in unspoken thanks, and when she starts to the right, he reaches out to turn her leftwards. "There you go," he grins, and a few moments later when he makes it down to the hangar to see Lando hugging Chewie and the General holding someone that can only be _the_ Luke Skywalker, he'll think that little smile of hers is familiar.

He'll also think he sees Han Solo a flicker of light holding the both of them, but he isn't as sure.

\- -- - -- -

When she sees him, he's got a stain on his shirt, a tray of cakes in his hands while he stands there in the middle of the cafeteria, and he drops it all when he notices her.

"Rey," he says like he doesn't quite believe it, a surge of shock, and oh, so much hope since it's been so long he was half-preparing himself for maybe not really getting to see her again. Well, a lot, 'cause if she's a Jedi (and she must be, a totally cool one judging by her caped hood) then she must have lots of important thing to do and learn and see, and he's just --

"Finn," she gushes, with so many apologies since she couldn't stay longer, couldn't wait for him to wake, had to leave without saying a proper goodbye, but no one had ever come back for her, and she'd never had anyone to come back to, and all these things, all these pieces of her starting to burn behind her eyes and well in her throat. " _Finn_."

"Rey," he smiles, grins so bright, it's all in his chest when he steps forward as she does, opens his arms out to her so she can walk into them.

When she does, and they're fitting into each other and he's holding so tight, it's.. it's her breath on his neck, and her hair smelling like the Falcon, and her arms strong over his back where she's clutching his shirt tightly with her hands, and it's like he's been holding his breath his entire life until now.

They're a standstill here in the cafeteria, just arms and how wholesome this feels, like it's not been months when she says it quietly into his shoulder, held fast, "I have so much to tell you."


	4. A Step That Won't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And Rey just eats up every word, smiles so big with the handle of her spoon pressed to her nose. It takes him a second to realize she's still so new to this. 
> 
> "I should find Luke," she suddenly remembers, starting out of her chair just for Poe to help her back down.

They're hugging for hours and days that stretch on so slowly and steadily, like strands of honey pulled from a jar, cresting waves, the knotted vertebrae of his spine all like cobble, the dips of his ribs like wanes and gibbous, blood and flesh and warm and _real_ , and really, it's only minutes spent holding each other. 

She just doesn't let go, so he for sure isn't letting go. He'll hold her forever. Stay here forever. Except they close this mess hall a little after midnight, so maybe not, but so slowly, how tense she is loosens with seconds, with his breath in her hair. It's so much easier to believe he's safe when he's solid and standing and swaying just a little, hugging her so tight it fists in his heart, shivers down his back when she lifts her arm to curve around his neck. 

"You're okay," she whispers reverent. Maybe she's said it four times already since they were swept into each other's arms, and maybe she's said it to his holo form all fuzzy and broken up and blue, but she's seeing him lifeless in a blanket of snow, darkness crawling like tendrils and sinews into his mind, and she's seeing him lifeless in an infirmary bed. She'd heard even though she didn't mean to that the measures taken to procure his life were expensive, _excessive_ , and they might not have done so much if it wasn't worth the life of a hero spurned into a tragedy. 

Because he's breathing, because she can feel each note of his heartbeat and every feeling coursing through him like a cresting pinprick of spectral light beckoning to him with her palm up, her fist in his shirt, she says it again, "You're okay."

"I'm okay," he whispers, his chest so warm that he always, _always_ was even when he wasn't. Like he's questioning it, he trails his fingers a little further up, just barely feels how soft her hair is where it's been pulled loose from a messy tie. "You knew I was."

"I know," she whispers reluctantly, because she did, she did, just not in person and not like this. _Search your feelings_ , she thinks, and it's more gentle than relief, softer than something phantom. Everything is okay. And good. And in a glimpse of her mind she can feel Luke's bright pull steady towards Leia, and her eyelashes are wet. "Tell me things," she insists just then, clearing her throat quietly. 

When he stifles back just a little, his arms still folded around her, around the spun brown cloth of her cowl, she's smiling so bright. She's an entire sun just beaming on everything, pulling him in. "Poe says BB-8 never stopped talkin' about you," he grins. And then -- oh, skies, she _giggles_ , and weeks of things to say to her bubble up and start to burst. "I never did either, but Poe never complained. He's a good guy like that. Jessika calls him _Balls_ , and when I asked him what she was on about, he said it was like Bebe. And Jess still calls me a Trooper, though, but in this nice, sorta twisted way?"

He smiles, and it's just all these feelings gushing out of him, and she can _feel_ that, and it's so ripe. It's a flood after a drought. It's electric.

"I think she respects me," he continues, his thoughts traveling in entire _parsecs_ that trip and toss over each other, "so I've gotten used to it. And here, which -- it's better now that you're here. Already. You know? I -- yeah. I know what a hydrospanner is now. It's really impressive."

"Oh," she says, _oh_ , "that is, Finn." She's really missed so much. 

But he's still grinning like she hasn't, and maybe not when he's been awake for less than a third of the time she's been away, but it's softer when they hug again. Less urgent. More lingering. 

"We could make a holovid of them," Jess says from across the room, standing next to Poe and his mute sorta vague sorta faraway smile that's lightyears and parsecs and a memory away. 

"We should."

"Hey," she tells him, prodding at his arm. She's as sultry as anyone can be in a cargo orange jumpsuit, but there's a kindness in there somewhere, too, something that tries to understand open skies and tally marks and a split lip 'cause of a broken vase. "You need a warm body, I'm here."

"Yeah," he smiles like always, "thanks, but I'll pass. I gotta go hug my buddies."

\- -- - -- -

When Luke and Leia are finally alone, when Snap trips over a toolbox because he's looking at Luke because it's like.. because it's been.. he was _fifteen_ and a hotshot and Luke _kriffing_ Skywalker was all anyone had ever talked about. The best star pilot in the galaxy. 

And Snap's not Testor so he saluted and kept walking, too old for all of this, and Luke and Leia finally have a moment to themselves. To meet all over again. 

His eyes try not to dwell on the jacket she's wearing. He would have teased her about it decades ago, but now that it's his fault, his failure --

"Luke," she sighs a small storm, a stern look queried up at him. She knows him too well. "Don't."

"I'm sorry," he has to say, but she holds up a hand to silence him, successfully a princess and general and mother and sister all in one. 

"I can feel him," Leia decides, glancing to the sky, to the ceiling. "Han."

"That brings me so much --"

"He stopped running, Luke. I had to take the time to send someone out to _find_ you. Multiple times."

"Leia," he starts, lifting his hand to rake through his beard. 

"You should have come back to us." She says it so soft, so like Padmé must have, _no one blamed you_ , except that really isn't true. Han blamed Luke, Vader, the Force for all those visions, Snoke, Luke maybe more than anyone and without meaning to. It just made looking in mirrors easier. 

"I couldn't," he wants to say, but that isn't right. He lost his faith. He lost his meaning. He lost -- "Rey."

"The girl," Leia smiles. As bright as Jakku. "I know."

\- -- - -- -

_It was weeks and weeks ago, and it was really all Rey could do not to cry._

_She couldn't focus, she couldn't think. She was exhausted. She tripped down the stone steps. Her tower of stones crumbled. Luke's patience was running thin. She_ couldn't _anything._

_Training and feeling and using the force was difficult and sometimes impossible, and it was awful._

_Except it was so nice, too._

_Learning and trying and his patient discipline and the companionship of staying on the island with their intellectual conversations and fresh fruit._

_But that day was especially exhausting, and she was_ so _tired of it, of walking on eggshells, of sand stuck to her toes, of waiting on the precipice of a cliff and an ocean and an inferno, and he_ couldn't _either._

_"I'm trying," she had said, and she tried not to shout, tried not to cry._

_"You do it or you don't," he challenged. He felt her anger, that flash of irritation, and he -- he tried not to see Ben._

_"Oh," she had huffed, all the precision to not let her boulders crash when she lowered her arms, all the insight to know he was starting to walk away. She hadn't taken her blinders off. "That's just fine. Give up. Go to your cave."_

_"It's --" but the expense of the moment won out over his indignation, and he said it quietly like it was more regret, a poor shot at a smile. "It's no AT-AT."_

_That made her laugh. At just how bad. Everything is. Was. "Luke." Without a title. Without anything. She's still facing him with the helmet on, blind to anything but the force, and it's an island. An ocean. "Why'd you leave me on Jakku?" she whispered._

_They'd been on that cliff for months._

_"I didn't," he answered, but that made her recoil, and it wasn't the right thing to say, and he didn't -- he should have known she hadn't died with the rest of them. He should have felt it. "Your mother. My wife."_

_"She --"_

_"A pilot," he interrupted. He didn't know what else to say. "Rogue Squadron. She had your hair." Had._ Had. _His eyes were wet. It started to rain. "We lost her when I thought I lost you."_

\- -- - -- -

"Bad news," Poe calls, yawning into his fist. Rey's sitting in his seat across from Finn, and that one step he takes closer to their table in the cafeteria has the both of them instantly quiet. Until Finn snorts and Rey starts to cackle and he can't believe it. 

"I haven't laughed this hard in seconds," he sniggers, eyes bright and alert and happy, it's a wonder the First Order ever kept him down with all that electroshock therapy. 

"He was telling me things about you," Rey adds, a little excited, a little sheepish. 

She's still looking like she's unused to so many people, all eight of them in here way after hours, but there's ten cups of yellow gelatin between her and Finn. Some things never change. "Everything but my social safety number, right?" he grins, pulling out the chair next to Finn.

"And the X-wing handshake."

"All our secrets, huh?"

"Most of them," Finn quips. He's sorta just gazing at Rey while she watches four pilots a couple tables away toast each other with juice boxes and _live_ , and then he's looking at the table when she glances back to him, and Poe -- oh, stars.

"Okay," he says. "Well, the bad news, Rey, the room you didn't use last was signed to someone else."

"Didn't use?"

"Who?" she beams, lighting up like she knows them, another spoon in her hand ready to tackle all the Resistance.

"Del from the control room."

"Oh," she frowns, everything thoughtful. "What's she like?"

"Probably really smart."

"Indoor type," Finn guesses with a quick flash of a dimpled smile. 

And Rey just eats up every word, smiles so big with the handle of her spoon pressed to her nose. It takes him a second to realize she's still so new to this. 

"I should find Luke," she suddenly remembers, starting out of her chair just for Poe to help her back down.

"He's with the General, and who knows how long they'll be," he says.

"Right." She nods and then she's familiar with her crinkled frown, the face he recognizes from Finn's bedside. "How is she really?"

So he says that Leia's been fine, 'cause that's what she'd say. Barely sleeping, lots of caf, lots of lookin' real faraway and.. laughing. Like a crazed person. Like memories and ghosts are everywhere. "She's getting there."

"She's intimidating."

"Bossy," Poe teases, throwing his arm over the back of Finn's chair. "It hasn't been easy, though," he budges, just a foot off the cliff, free-diving into the rest of the galaxy. "She's been made a worrier and a warrior in all this."

"She's so.. isn't she?" With a broad gesture and her palm up to the ceiling, to the sky, she calls for all the things Leia is, everything she doesn't have a name for just yet. "She is," she decides, sitting back in her chair with a satisfied little quirk of her mouth. "Luke told me bunches of brilliant stories about her."

That makes Finn a bit nervous, though, 'cause usually no one survived telling questionably embellished and accurate tales about Phasma.

..Except him. 

The trash compactor. 

Hah. 

"Don't be sad," Rey blurts to shock the both of them. She's watching Finn's change from confusion to grief to his accustomed smile in a heartbeat, her hand outstretched to the stain on his shirt where his heart ought to be. Where it hurts. "I'm sorry," she says next, shutting her eyes to chide herself. "I can feel it."

"You -- oh," he says, sorta confused, sorta just.. never going to keep a secret from her anyways. "I was thinking about Solo."

\- -- - -- -

"I still don't really believe it," she tells Luke. "It's been years, but I'll wake up thinking we're in the Falcon again and his big feet are clunking up the ramp."

"Are --" He has to pause. This really isn't funny. "Are you remembering Han in a good way or a bad way?"

"I don't know," she admits, a vague lie, but he's been gone too long to call her out on it. "You know he snored?"

"Almost as loud as you."

"He hid in Cloud City with Lando, Luke, of all the.." She's too distraught to finish, too annoyed, too still in love with the idiot. 

"I always said he was a bad guy," he japes, his smile just shy of the farmboy's from Tatooine. "I told you, didn't I?" 

"Of course," she mutters in a wry unimpressed way. She pulls on the sleeves of Han's old jacket, sips wine imported from Naboo.

"And what about Ben?" he asks her. Point-blank. A foot off the cliff. He's not sure if they're talking about her son, but now -- right now -- he might have lost his place to wonder. 

"The years have been good to you, I forgot to say."

"Leia."

"I know our fleets could use some motivation."

"I'm not hosting a mixer," he starts, affronted, but then Leia surges to her feet, paces around the room, tries to straighten things around the room like it'll surround her with order. 

"I'd know. After Han," she sighs, a little shuddering. "I'd feel it if he were dead." 

Because that was death. And she felt it for the first time with Han, that bleak darkness and the tragedy of a boy turned into a hero and how it made a myth of a connection so strong, it was like an asteroid field all broken and torn apart. 

"So what do we do?"

\- -- - -- -

Finn meant to make it a joke. A joke about how she has to see the super cool, super manly scar on his back. 

'Cause it is. Super cool and manly. A symbol of his bravery, and well, if the focus was on that instead of all the days he spent unable to move and forced to use bedpans, so be it. 

So when he asked if she wanted to see the scar, intending to be clever and as light as the past couple hours of him and Poe telling her everything she'd missed were, the laughter had to stop eventually. 

After making sure both of them were set, Poe left to go wake his squadron up for drills, half-five in the morning and lots of orange and lots of stolen pillows for Rey and this patched-up air mattress on the common room floor. _"Comm me if you need me,"_ he'd assured them, leaving them to combat laughter and sleep on their own. 

So.

Just. 

As far as normal interactions go, he doesn't really know -- it's just -- she -- she's wearing a set of his clothes since the storage is closed 'till at least seven, and she's telling him what it felt like to stand next to the temple overhanging the ocean, how small it made her feel in an empowering way, how big it made the rest of the galaxy seem.

"Does it hurt?" she asks. Or he thinks she does. 

His heart's loud, and her breathing's gotten real quiet. There's not really any room for the joke this was gonna be, his scar, since he's mostly shirtless and cross-legged in front of her. 

"Not really," he mumbles, half-true.

"You're wincing."

"You can't even see."

"Finn," she sighs. She places her palm over his shoulderblade just barely, feeling him tense, feeling how warm his skin is. "Is it bad?"

"No." He smiles like she can see him, except she can't, and he kinda just laughs awkwardly to himself. "It was at first, but the medbots were helpful. And annoying."

"Do you mind if I..?" she trails off, her fingertips a lot like apology where she's gingerly brushing against the seam of his back, the faded, light scar burned and sewn over his spine.

"Sure," he says, clearing his throat quietly, tying to not.. anything. Her knuckles knot up to his neck from the smooth stretch of the burn, and when she stops there, he knows what she's feeling. "That's nothing," he says automatically, shaking her hand away before he can help it.

She's another apology etched into his skin where the slight touch of her turns where he does, tired and contrite, and she slides a little ways back, dipping the mattress where his knees bump into hers. It's awkward for a second, her surprise too tired to be hurt, his stained shirt bunched over his arms since all he did was slip his head out of it, and _looking_ at her like that, seeing her smile --

It's weird. He has this instinct to sorta.. lean forward and lightly sorta hit her face with his face, his mouth, maybe, but it's flight or fight. 

"I'm, uh. I gotta. Caf. I've gotta caf up," he blurts tactfully, cringing at himself before he just goes for it. He's going for it. Yep. The caf. "I've gotta.. y'know."

"Oh, yes," she smiles like she does -- which he doesn't -- but she's so bright, just as vivid and kind as he remembered, so -- yes.

"Right. I'm gonna go get to that."

And he flees after an awkward wave back to her. Sees her just as confused as he is. Goes to ask Poe about it.


	5. Dance In Our Tears and Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I can still run without you holding my hand!" Rey laughs, a toss over her shoulder that slows and stalls.
> 
> "But I can't," he chokes, gasping in a quick breath that his laughter shakes apart, twisting at his spine.

One stomp, then two, then three, Snap's right foot coming down to quiet the lot of them loud and living in the mess hall.

"Good morning," he starts, because positive reinforcements, a listening ear, an unbendable backbone, he's all of it, the way the Resistance hush like this is reverent, a silence so loud it's morning yawns and the first fresh eggs today in ages. "First item up," and it's the return of Luke Skywalker, of course it is.

Respectfully, no one speaks up, but like the mess hall's crowd all inhale at once, what they won't say outright _palpable_ in the air of this compound, it's like all the universe takes a collective breath, too.

And Finn doesn't know much about it, not the way some of the guys, Poe, hold their hands over their hearts like this is the answer to all they wanted. The way Rey sitting next to him tries to see everything at once, taste everything at once, keeps laughing so beautifully like it's a surprise to her the world can be hilarious.

He doesn't know much about it, he really doesn't, but where it presses on his chest cavity and fills his lungs when he breathes, he thinks he knows.

It's hope.

_As long as there's light, we've got a chance._

\- -- - -- -

He wakes up gasping, sweating, _choking_ , the sheets an endless sea spurring his mind rampant and raging, so lost, so, _so_ lost, he doesn't know if it's rage or serenity that burns out his eyes.

He just feels it. The pull to the Light.

He feels it, too, and oh, he.. he _hates_ , here in his dark room. The galaxy dark and infinite out the small window.

He feels a presence he hasn't since.. since.

It's like a weight on his chest is crushing him with helpless and honor and duty and burden, his clothes practically soaked with sweat, his dark hair likely coming out in handfuls from the way he's tugging at it and trying to get out of his head. It's too much but _not enough_ all at once, with the smashed mirror in the corner of his room right next to the pillar of strength, the ashes with the skull and the carcass of his grandfather's mask, a double-edged sword, and no, no, he does feel it, too, so bright that it burns and chokes like bile in his throat.

\- -- - -- -

And somewhere between sleep and wake, somewhere guilt isn't regret and grief and hope and family can pretend to be anger for just a while, General Organa stares long and hard in the mirror.

And darling, the years really weren't kind at all, ironic though because she is flawless and galactic and holds the Resistance up with just her spine and her slight shoulders.

But a second, a creak of this rackety old facility playing tricks on her mind even other damned Jedi Knights couldn't, it sounds like the croon of familiar footsteps before Han would probably accidentally ram his shoulder in the doorway.

Distracted _by her_ , he would tease with a smirk quirking half his mouth, the other waiting to be kissed, but if it's still sleep and awake where dreams can be foolish and pretend, then it's years ago, twenty-six of them, Ben entranced by some toy Han's made for him while she holo's a meeting and makes her son his breakfast at the same time.

Where everything was busy but still good, the very best, even if the busy part hasn't changed over the years. For a rather unforgiving moment, however, her reflection hardens with the trite thinking anger and vengeance is as good a motivator as any. Some of the best that keeps people living routine and moving father if not moving on.

But even more unforgivingly, she wishes her Ben would see reason and give this up, would _come home_ so they could try like they always did, the three of them.

She wants him to come home.

\- -- - -- -

Now, Finn keeps coming up with reasons to stay with Rey all day.

Not that he needs them -- she's already so used to him just _being_ there, footsteps that make the hallway less unsettlingly quiet, a presence at her side that pours yellows and blues and warmth into the air, into the moment.

They're given a wide berth as they wonder around the halls, only a little mindless and a lot giggling. A squadron's in the air, Poe's out with a few being useless, probably, and the rest are somewhere around here with technicians and control people, maintenance and medics. They saw a tech a couple minutes ago carrying parts to some machine neither of them knew the use of, and through what Finn promised her was a shortcut down four separate hallways that would _totally_ bring them on track to where the guy's heading -- well, after an extra twenty minutes of circling back and trying the opposite wing, his shoulders slack a little, a little more.

"It was a shortcut," he swears. He looks so helpless here, his eyes determinedly facing straight out like this isn't embarrassing. He'll swear that six corridors and through the closet with two doors and past the picture someone made of stick figure orange pilots was a shortcut until he -- doesn't ever die. That's dark. He'll just fade in and out and stay here with Rey making that face she does when she's too nice to him to laugh.

"It was," she grins. She sets her hand to his shoulder like she's seen Poe do, and it's only awkward for the moment she second-guesses the comfort the action's supposed to imply. "A shortcut." Her laugh's a little unsteady, but it isn't quiet and a little hollow like she isn't really feeling any of it.

So he tries not to think too much about it when he just.. reaches for her hand four times before he's casual and nonchalant enough to link their fingers together while pretending he totally _isn't_ when she looks at him.

"I tripped in that hall right there," he tells her cheerfully, starting to point to the left except his hand's locked with hers and gestures.

She squeezes, and his heart gives out a little. "Good thing you always get back up," she says like a fond sort of memory. Instead of turning right, however, they start for the left.

Two pilots from Jess's squadron hurry past them with arms full of banners and lights.

Rey holds his gaze for a second, curiosity pinning into her eyes while he tries to look as mischievous and daring as Poe does, and then they're full on _sprinting_ after them, a full speed chase down the halls of _wait!_ and _run faster!_ and _almost there!_ and Rey's curling laugh when he reaches for her palm again.

"I can still run without you holding my hand!" Rey laughs, a toss over her shoulder that slows and stalls.

"But I can't," he chokes, gasping in a quick breath that his laughter shakes apart, twisting at his spine. "Not for very long," he has to add for a bit of his dignity even while she's cracking up and bursting into another laughing fit.

"I'm sorry," but he waves her apology away, lets her catch her breath. Her face is all pink, pinker when she leans back against the wall mere feet away from where the closed cafeteria doors are, and her giggles are so precious like it takes her a lifetime of amazement that anything could possibly be funny. It's just she can't stop, but he was feeling the same weeks and weeks ago.

"I'm fine," he says again for good measure, still smiling. It isn't quite the lie it will be in a few weeks, but here -- he is, he's _so_ fine. He's so happy just to be here with her that he'd keep running if he had to. This walking, though, this standing in place and sweet and slow and here, this is nice, too. A few feet down actually, he points. "BB-8 knocked me down over there."

She doesn't mean to laugh, but the sound's out before she can snatch it back and properly sympathize. "Finn."

"I know," he smiles.

Right when she pushes off the wall and reaches for him, a green-skinned alien pokes his head out from the mess hall and -- as far as Finn can understand -- tells them to get out. So they do, and all this time's gone to trying not to feel like pickpocket thieves running a little too high on open-mouthed laughing apologies.

"He said they weren't ready yet," she translates for him kindly, her smile all up to her eyes when he mutters that he's getting better at understanding the Resistance's vernaculars, he swears.

He'd do just about anything to make her laugh like that again, he _swears_ , her choked little snort like she's trying so hard just to not guffaw and spurn him here in the hallway.

But small-time goals for now. He hears Poe's voice in his head telling him that no one will hear or change anything if he won't speak up for himself, so he does. Kinda. He's blinded the second a vent from the roof patches in light that shines in her hair, just like a holovid, just like all the cliches Poe tells him happen in every scenario they worked through before Rey flew back into his atmosphere. And then he's not quite sure where they're going, what they're doing.

"It was hard," and he doesn't realize he's speaking until she's tilting her head back to look at him, her eyes bright and her skin like gold. "Without you. Here." His smile's a little timid for precaution and self-preservation, but stars, the way she's looking at him when he picks his gaze up from the floor.

Like they're on the Starkiller and he's trying so hard not to hug her since physical contact was her staff smacking him upside the head and her angry _stop taking my hand!_ when _he_ needed the comfort and assurance, thank you very kindly. So much going on in her eyes, and it just -- it -- he didn't think it'd be like this. Still. Again and again.

Feeling.

"Finn," she says, not unkindly. It's.. like. A precipice, trying to say so much and _so_ close to it, life might be different if he would, but another someone comes down the hall with a gas mask and a stack of posters and.. right. So many things that could have transpired just now, and she presses her cheek to her shoulder, smooth leather a pleasant scruff on her face. "Finn."

" _Trooper_!"

The sudden shout startles both them, Jess turning towards them from a group of orange suits down the hall, her usual smirk instantly more devious than the general unassuming smile that chases Poe around.

"Jess!" Rey beams to his own greet of _Testor_ , and he tries to act cool to her questioning look.

"Yeah, we're on a nickname, code name basis, yep. We're friends like that. Totally."

"No," Jess frowns now from beside Rey, shorter, a little stockier, a lot more menacing.

He's never had two women looking at him like that before, like he's kinda a moron. It's quickly becoming hot in here. "I wouldn't say _no_ exactly," he grins, wincing a little. "I'd say more like.. yes. Yeah."

Jess gives him a blank stare. "I'm more fun than he is," she says obviously like it's some conspiracy theory. She links her arm through Rey's like a jest, and he almost doesn't notice her tense up for just a second before she relaxes.

"You are not, Testor."

"Am, too."

Rey just _giggles_ , and he never wants her to stop when her nose scrunches like that.

"Party's probably getting crazy about nineteen hundred hours, so don't be late, Trooper."

"Rey?"

"I'm stealing her," Jess announces, hooking their arms together like mischief and leaving him standing there alone.

Rey waves back at him timidly, a wonder-like excitement starting to flush her cheeks.

He can feel that, too, in the atmosphere. The air so light in this secret compound. He realizes again that the Resistance isn't anything like the First Order convinced and bid them to believe, and for just a second, he wonders what the other lies they've told are, if some of them even know they're being lied to, if power really isn't just a rank and authority isn't an official and the Supreme Leader.. oh, _kriff_ , for a heartbeat he's worried he's defecting before he can breathe.

When he finds Poe, routine better than any of his life cycles the past twenty-odd years bringing him to his buddy, he plays the disappointment on his face for show. For dramatics and to hide the confusion that's a little vulnerable and frail like his ego.

"Why doesn't it feel like this all the time?" he asks Poe. People are walking by and laughing and existing like nothing's more simple. Everyone's so ready for this gala tonight. "Why don't we do more of this?"

"Well," Poe starts. When he answers the important questions, he thinks, he has to say them right. The ghosts are chasing him, though, like sometimes they do when he can't sleep. "You were there, Finn," he finally chooses to say. Maybe it clenches his heart a little, but Finn's looking away to miss the color of grief on his face anyways. "The Resistance didn't win so many battles," but gods, he still smiles, can't not. All he's heard, himself and the buddies he's lost, Finn's terror and Rey screaming in her nightmares before she went after Luke.. "Not a lot to celebrate."

And one day, he'll kill Ben Organa-Solo with his bare hands.

"Oh," Finn says. He's not disappointed, just. "The First Order made it seem like you all were.. y'know."

Poe blinks at him. "No?"

"Uh. Impure?" When Poe chokes on nothing but air, Finn hastily adds, "Not like that! Like, crazed? Kinda wild. Sorta. Uh."

"..Finn, man."

"They let us think you guys were wont to reckless, wild behavior and made bad personal decisions that explained why the Resistance was always lo-- uh."

"You wanna finish that statement?" Poe warns, his brown eyes a kind, stern jest, a look he's received often enough from the General.

But because Finn's awkward and can't talk his foot out of his mouth, he awkwardly laughs too loudly, makes a wide gesture. "I wasn't saying anything. Nope."

"Uh huh. Just remember, you don't ask Rey to dance with you tonight, and I just will," he challenges, grinning at him.

"I'm just happy you taught me," Finn smiles, warm as anything. It was weeks and weeks ago when Poe taught him to dance the proper way of ages ago, so he's gonna be brilliant tonight, graceful with what Poe say are his two amazing left feet.

(Like Nines and Zero used to joke about Slip fondly and brotherly and nopenope _nope_.)

But then there's a clatter that startles the both of them, Chewie's angry growl and General Calrissian's uncomfortable expression and their General's short, fierce strides.

"You won't stay?" she half-shouts, calls to him striding down the hangar.

Lando stops and stares just a moment at his baby, the _Millennium Falcon_ , and his wistful look's more for her than for Leia. He whistles lowly. "I could take her 'round the galaxy and no one would know," he muses.

General Organa arcs a brow at him, all caught up and so lost. It's just an old rust bucket, but like she can feel her skin, she can feel Han straightening up all offended, the stupid, beautiful look he'd give just for her, a sardonic smirk and the _hey_ he'd offer as an insulted peace offering. His Force-ghost is likely playing sabacc somewhere.

"Rey wouldn't let you," she's answers instead. Then, " _I_ wouldn't let you," because some part of her that's trying to be everyone's mother wants the few (twice-removed) loved ones she has left close to her heart and in arms reach. "You've barely just arrived, Lando."

A low, pitiful growl; Chewbacca tilts his head at the two of them.

"No, Chewie," he says regretfully, looking anything but, looking like he's just gotta get out. "I can't take you with me."

A longer, more aggressive roar that protests a little too much, honestly.

"Chewie," Leia sighs. Her loved ones, why can't they stay, why won't he come back?

"You know you have to stay here, old friend."

Chewbacca whines, and while Finn can't understand, he hears that tone, the heartache.

"Because," Lando starts, and kriff, he's not gonna shout, he can't, "you know you have to take care of the Princess. You've gotta look after her, Chewie."

But that -- oh, no, _what's up, buddy?_

_You're being put into carbon freeze._

All Leia does is _laugh_ , more than he's ever heard, and it's not funny at all, it really isn't, Chewie's growling at Lando like a warning now.

"I'll stay," he exhales. "I'll do what I can."

\- -- - -- -

And alright. Somehow something changes.

To Poe.

He's not bitter, he's really not, he's always been a little dreamy and starry-eyed and romantic, naïve since twenty-odd years ago, he was playing at war with toy blasters and an old mop, an old crate his starship while he took turns playing pilot and prince and hero and evil emperor with Ben.

And well, now he gets why their parents hated it.

And well.

Everyone's dancing like they've got something to celebrate, Jess guiding Rey all over the dance-mess ball floor to keep these other guys away from her, but he's certain he heard Jess shout something about _if you were into women!_ at her, and. Finn's kinda frightened and entranced because this isn't proper ballroom dancing like Poe taught him.

This is grinding and Snap's old man boppin' around with finger guns aimed all over the pleasant atmosphere.

"Go ask her to dance," he tells Finn, meeting his eyes in all the loud music. He tries to take the cup from him, but his buddy's grip tightens.

"What?!"

"Go ask her to dance!" he shouts, his mouth inches away from Finn's ear. When he pulls back, he can see the embarrassment color his face like all the bright miscolored lights do, and he grins reassuringly, nudging him towards the crowded bodies feet away.

"How?" Finn shouts back. His eyes scan around the rest of the Resistance for Rey. She's laughing to the music still enthralled she can be so happy, that music this nice exists, that so many people can have so much _fun_ , and he's breathless for a second. He's walking towards her before Poe can give him tips on how to interrupt a lady's dance and how to rock her socks off with all the dance moves he taught him.

Smiling to himself, Poe watches Finn weave in and out of people until he's steps away from Rey and Jess. Testor points over her shoulder to him, turning Rey by the shoulders to face Finn so their eyes meet and the music stops and it's..

It's just like stories that get told again and again.

He's not bitter, he's really, not towards them. He just wants there to be a different ending for them, a happier one, 'cause he's seeing the look on Finn's face when he said it, _I wasn't a man, I was a Stormtrooper,_ and he's seeing Rey months ago cross-legged on the floor, a hammock of old scratchy blankets over her head 'cause she said the bed was trying to swallow her. The fear in her eyes when she said she was fine, what he understood as a nightmare, how she couldn't even _sense_ the presence of Kylo Ren anymore. He could've been in the room with her for all she knew. And she was terrified.

And Finn and Rey, they need something happier.

Youth really is wasted on the young.

It might be bitterness that has him leaving the mess hall and the lively party they've got strewn up in there with banners and lights and everyone's smiles. All but the most important one, and for like, an instant, a flicker of doubt, he swears he feels Han Solo. A hand on his shoulder that makes the hair at the back of his neck prickle, but it's just him in the corridor. Him and the faint light he can see a few turns through the maze of this base.

"You should be at the celebration, Dameron," the General says cooly, not even bothering to look up from the screens on the wall.

"So should you. I think you owe your brother a dance after all these years."

"And you, Black Leader." Leia finally looks up, dark lines around her eyes, three cups of caf in front of her. She looks unimpressed and flattered all at once, honored and disturbed but justified. "Will you try to dance me into a stupor?"

Deities, take him now. "Well," he shrugs, his foot in his mouth.

"No," she resigns, giving him a stern look. She softens in seconds, though, and smiles in a way the Resistance probably hasn't seen the Rebellion. "Thank you, Poe, but I couldn't even _if_ I would."

"Ouch," he half-teases, leaning his shoulder left on the doorway. "How are you holding up?"

 _I can manage._ "I'm fine."

And again, he's a little bitter. That he's thought about the General like a mother when his was taken from him when he was nine, when her son was taken from her not long after. The galaxy's not so fair right now. If he listens closely beyond the whirring of the tech in this room and the scuffling of Threepio around here somewhere, he can probably hear music. Laughter. The distance vacancy in Luke's eyes.

Heroes don't fall out of the sky like angels, not even close, and this battle isn't close to being over, he knows that. There's just more to fight for now. And an aging legend in the mess hall now, well. The lives they've lost over an entire army of the best-trained fighters in all the worlds.

"I want to start scouting, General," he says, his voice uncharacteristically and emptily hard. "Recon, attacks, anything. I need to do it." They have to start hitting first.

"Dameron," Leia warns. The Princess might have commanded, but the General orders and calls the shots and has to base her instinct on more than wrath and impatience. Lives on the line and boots on the ground and maybe the fighter in her is getting tired. "You're not part of the next air strike. You know that."

"In all respect, I should be," he frowns, crossing his arms when he straightens up. "General --"

"Yes, _General_ ," she reminds. Like acid. Like kriffing carbon freeze. "While I do on occasion listen to your council, Black Leader, I.." But she stops.

He used to be reckless because he was young and arrogant and hot-headed and cocksure and the best damned ace pilot in the Resistance, but now. His anger makes him reckless, his wrath and his want of vengeance and it's all like it never happened, everything about light and chances.


End file.
